


the tie that binds me to you

by glowinghorizons



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Friendship, Pen Pals, Teacher!Bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 08:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4952854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowinghorizons/pseuds/glowinghorizons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“we’ve been pen pals for like hella months and we finally decided to meet up and damn you’re cute, also did you break up with your jerk bf/gf yet?” au</p><p>or:</p><p> bellamy and clarke finally meet after months and months of hand-written letters, phone calls and text messages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the tie that binds me to you

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: i don’t own the 100, any of the characters or any similarities between this story and the general plot of the show. the title is taken from the song “battles” by hudson taylor. this scenario has been done hundreds of times and i’ve loved the bellarke fics that i’ve read that are based on this prompt, so i had to write one of my own.

_Bellamy,_

_I haven’t heard from you in a few weeks and I’m hoping that everything is going okay. I know your sister is graduating soon and it’s probably freaking you out, but try to smile! She sounds awesome and I’m betting there’s nothing that’s going to stop her from conquering the world, so at least you have that to look forward to._

_My Mom has been driving me crazy lately. She wants so many things for me, and I shouldn’t be ungrateful, I know I shouldn’t, but I just wish she would listen to me. I don’t really know what to do about her._

_Finn’s been away on a work retreat for a few days so I’m pretty much going out of my skull here. Let me know if there’s a time that will work soon when we can talk! I kinda miss your voice, even if you are grumpy most of the time._

_;)_

_Talk to you soon (hopefully),_

_\- Clarke_

_._

_._

Bellamy completely blames his love of history and love of the written word for his current predicament. He never intended to start being someone’s pen pal. Even the name for it seems childish, and he does his best to never ever refer to Clarke as his “pen pal” in the company of other people (namely his sister, who laughed so hard when he first used the phrase that soda came out of her nose). 

His senior year in college, he took a linguistics class, and while he loved the study of words and of language, he  _hated_  his professor. It was this professor that he had to thank for meeting Clarke though, so he can’t really complain. In that class, he was assigned to write to someone in another country and while originally he was meant to write about the differences in slang and dialect, it was all kind of a wash when he found out that Clarke, who was living in England, was American, but was living with her parents overseas while her mother worked at a hospital in London.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. Something about Clarke kept him writing, (even though he grumbled about what a pain it was every single time) and she kept writing back. It’s been almost a full year now, and he thinks that maybe Clarke knows him better than almost anyone else.

* * *

 

It’s easier to tell people things when you know it’s going to take a full week before they even see the letter. By then, all the anxiety you have while writing it goes away, and you forget you even wrote the thing in the first place.

That hasn’t been the case for the last few weeks however, not since Clarke told him that she was thinking of moving back to the States after she graduated in a few weeks. For some reason, the prospect of her being on the same continent as him made everything all the more real, and he didn’t even know how to respond to her, so he didn’t.

Now he’s had two missed calls, a text and a letter from her, and he knows he’s being stupid and that he needs to bite the bullet and call her before she starts hiring detectives to make sure he isn’t in a ditch somewhere.

Sighing, he runs a hand through his curls before settling in on his couch and picking up his phone. His background is a picture of him and Octavia and it makes him smile even though the creeping feelings of anxiety as her graduation date grows closer loom underneath the surface. 

He swipes open his phone and scrolls until he finds Clarke’s name. Pressing ‘call’, he puts the phone to his ear and waits until he hears a now-familiar voice.

“Bellamy?”

He tries not to sigh, “Hey, Clarke.” When she doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, he thinks it’s just the delay because she’s so far away, but something in his gut tells him he knows better than that.

“Bellamy Blake.” She says his name firmly, and he winces even though she can’t see him. “Good to know you’re alive,” she tells him sarcastically. “I was beginning to think my next letter from you would be a ransom note.”

“I’m not important enough to be kidnapped.”

“That’s not funny,” she scolds, and he feels guilty for the thirtieth time that day.

“I’ve had... a lot of... a lot of stuff going on,” he says, and her sigh makes him feel like he’s just kicked her puppy.

“Well, me too.” 

“I’m sorry, okay?” He tells her, feeling frustrated that he can’t put into words why the thought of her moving back here makes him so anxious. Maybe it’s because he  _wants_  to meet her. 

He doesn’t want to meet her and have her be disappointed in him.

“Let’s just forget it. You’re alive, so that’s good news.” She’s trying to stay cheerful, he can tell, but he goes along with it.

“Forget about me. What’s going on with you? You said something about your Mom.”

There’s shuffling on the other side of the phone and he pictures her stretching out on her couch too, trying to get comfortable. “She’s just being... difficult. I don’t know. She’s been pushing me harder and harder to stay and go to medical school but...” she trails off, and Bellamy frowns.

“... But?”

“I think she and my Dad are getting a divorce.”

Bellamy’s eyes slip shut and he exhales loudly. “Shit, Clarke... I’m sorry.”

“I kind of saw it coming, but I thought they were working things out. How can she spend all her time pressuring me but she can’t even work on her own marriage?”

“What do you need me to do?” He asks, and it’s the protective instinct in him taking over that has him uttering those words. He doesn’t even know why he’s asking her, because what else is he going to do? He’s halfway across the world.

“Nothing,” she says, and her voice is soft. “I just... I want things to be normal. They’re not normal.”

“I don’t think you could ever be normal, princess,” he says, his voice equally quiet. 

.

.

.

The next few days go by in a blur of text messages and short phone calls. She texts him in her Advanced Art Theory class when she’s so bored she can hardly stand it, and he texts her while he’s grading papers. 

He smiles as he reads about the latest adventures she’s having with her best friend Wells, and it suddenly hits him how this friendship almost didn’t happen. When he first started writing to Clarke, he pictured her as a privileged, stuck-up princess, and didn’t make it a secret. 

.

_2 years ago_

_Clarke,_

_I sent you a picture of my sister and I in my last letter, and I’m wounded that you haven’t written back to me to tell me how handsome I am._

_(When do I get to see a picture of you, by the way?)_

_(It’s weird writing to someone when I can’t even picture what they look like.)_

_._

_Bellamy,_

_I’ve been studying, actually, so sorry, but I’m not over here swooning over you._

_(Your sister is super pretty though. You’re... okay looking, I guess.)_

_Here’s a picture of me during my last vacation. My parents took me to Ireland last year and I fell in love with the place._

_\- Clarke_

_PS - Please don’t judge me by my hair - it was very windy in Ireland. I don’t always look like Hermione Granger._

_._

The picture she sent him first was nothing short of breathtaking and he felt, not for the first time, like he was wasting his time trying to befriend someone who, in real life, would never waste their time with him.

It was clear from the picture that Clarke was way out of his league. Not even romantically, but socially. Her parents took her to Ireland. He knew her mother was a surgeon and her Dad worked for the government. 

People like her and her family didn’t waste their time with people like him.

.

_Princess,_

_Wow, your parents must be loaded, huh? A trip to Ireland sounds great. Doubt I’ll ever get to go there, but I can live vicariously through you, I guess._

_\- B_

_._

_Bellamy,_

_‘Princess’? Really? My parents are... they’re well off, sure. They didn’t pay for me to go to Ireland, though. I paid my own way.  
_

_I don’t know why I feel like I need to defend myself. I’m not sure if that’s what you intended._

_\- Clarke_

_._

After that, they didn’t talk for a few weeks. Bellamy felt guilty but every day that passed without Clarke reaching out to him somehow felt like his assumptions come true -- she realized that he was a waste of her time.

That is, until his phone rings and he glances down to see an unfamiliar number on the screen, and his heart rate speeds up. For some reason he just  _knows_  it’s Clarke. They exchanged phone numbers almost right away (Bellamy told her it was just in case he needed to speed up his project for Linguistics and didn’t have enough time to wait 2 weeks for her letters to arrive), but they’d never called each other before.

“Hello?” He answers hesitantly, and he’s cut off almost immediately by an angry female voice.

“Look, I don’t know where you get off making assumptions about me considering we’ve never actually met, but I’m calling you to prove you wrong.”

“Clarke?”

“Who else would it be?!” She almost screeches, and Bellamy pulls the phone away from his ear.

“Look, I don’t know what time it is there, but it’s almost midnight here and I have class in the morning--”

“I’m not letting you off this phone call until you tell me you don’t think I’m some prep school brat.”

“What if I just hang up?”

“Bellamy Blake.” She says, a warning, and he finds himself wanting to laugh. “We’re going to start over, got it? I’m Clarke Griffin. I’m eighteen and I’m a freshman at university in England. My mom is a surgeon and my dad is an ambassador to the UK. My parents don’t define me, and neither do their jobs.”

Bellamy is silent, not sure what he’s supposed to say or even if she wants him to say anything, but he’s saved from thinking of what to say when she continues.

“My parents are almost never home, and when they are, they argue. I spend most of my time doing homework, studying, or watching home renovation shows on HGTV. I want a dog, but my Mom won’t let me get one. My best friend is Wells, and his Dad works at the hospital with my mom. We’ve known each other since we were babies. I moved to England with my parents when I was ten, but I never got an English accent.”

“Clarke--”

“I’m not finished. My favorite movie is Mary Poppins and it makes me cry every single time. I like iced caramel lattes and blueberry scones, but the only good place near my house for coffee also has really good donuts. My mom wants me to go to medical school but I don’t want to because I want to go to art school. I don’t want my parents to pay for my college because I don’t want to feel like I owe them later on in life. I don’t have any siblings so I’m jealous of your relationship with your sister.”

Bellamy goes completely silent, aware now that he had judged her all wrong the first time. 

Feeling like an idiot, the line goes so silent that he’s afraid that she’s hung up on him. He doesn’t really know what to do, so he starts to reciprocate. “I raised Octavia from the time she was ten and I was fifteen. Our Mom died and I had to fight to keep her out of the foster system. I’ve been working two jobs for as long as I can remember so we can keep our shitty apartment.”

Clarke is quiet, just her breathing on the other end of the line, so Bellamy continues on.

“I hate summer. I prefer fall, but Octavia says that’s because hoodies and flannel make up 75% of my wardrobe. I play baseball sometimes with some friends. I coach a little league team in the summer.”

Clarke lets out a small laugh, and Bellamy feels something tighten inside his chest at the sound. He keeps going, “I’ve always been poor and had to work twice as hard for things that come pretty easily to other people.” He pauses, trying to figure out his words. “I’ve been told it’s given me a chip on my shoulder.”

“You could be nicer,” Clarke agrees, though her tone is teasing.

“It’s midnight,” he says, the apology he wants to give her lodging in the back of his throat.

“I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” 

“Okay.”

After that, things went as smooth as they could for two people who had an entire ocean between them. After they cleared the air between them, they found they had more in common than they originally thought, and Bellamy grew to value Clarke’s opinions and her friendship more than almost anything else.

They stayed in touch long after he graduated college.

He got an ‘A’ in Linguistics.

.

.

_present day_

When Clarke calls him a couple days later in tears, he’s never hated the distance between them more. 

“What happened?” He demands, although he already feels like he knows the answer.

Clarke’s had a boyfriend for a few months, and Bellamy hasn’t made it a secret that he doesn’t like the guy.

It sounds petty, but Finn is hardly ever around, and when he is, he’s vocal about how weird it is that Clarke and Bellamy are so close. 

(Bellamy is a little concerned that Clarke is starting to listen to Finn)

“He... he just left. I came home and all his stuff is gone, and I don’t--”

“Clarke, slow down. Take a deep breath.”

“How can he just do this?” Clarke gasps, and Bellamy wants to throttle Finn more than ever.

“He’s an idiot. Idiots do idiotic things,” he says, “He didn’t deserve you anyway.”

“What is it about me that makes everyone leave?” Clarke asks, and her voice is so small and unlike her and Bellamy hates it.

“It’s not you,” he tells her firmly, “You are strong and amazing and any guy is stupid if they can’t see that.”

When she’s quiet for a long time, he’s worried he’s said too much, but she replies with a quiet “thanks, Bell,” before the line goes dead.

A sinking feeling in his stomach, Bellamy stares at his phone and wonders if he just ruined everything.

.

.

He’s walking to meet Octavia for lunch a few days later when Clarke calls. 

“Hey,” he says, distracted as he weaves in and out of the unusual amount of people on the Boston streets. 

“Hi. Where are you? It sounds loud.”

“I’m meeting O for lunch downtown. Aren't you,” he pauses, looks at his watch, “supposed to be in class?”

“I had a thing,” she says dismissively, “I can call back later if this is a bad time.”

“No, it’s good.” He says, “I’ve got a few more blocks to walk.” Bellamy pushes past a few more people, grumbling to himself as he tries to figure out why the streets are so busy at this time in the afternoon. 

“So... I told you I was thinking of coming home, right?” Clarke asks, and she sounds nervous.

“You mentioned it, yeah.”

“Well... that might be happening sooner than I let on.”

Bellamy freezes on the sidewalk right in front of some fancy hotel as he reads a sign overhead, “ _Welcoming the world’s brightest minds in heart surgery!”_

“Bellamy? Are you still there?”

“Are you here  _right now_?” He asks, and his tone comes off more harsh than he intends, but he’s having a hard time thinking that the woman he’s been talking to for the better part of two years is actually in the same city as him. “Clarke?” 

“My Mom has some appearance to make at this surgery conference, and I... I kind of thought I might start looking for apartments while we visit.”

Bellamy doesn’t know what to say. His mind is going a million miles an hour, because this is the day he’s both been excited for and dreading since he and Clarke first started talking. 

She’s going to be here, in his town, and probably want to see him, and he’s not sure that he wants her to. He’s not sure that she’s going to like what she sees. What if she meets him and discovers that he’s a total fuck-up?

“Bellamy? Are you still there? You’ve been quiet a really long time.”

Bellamy shakes himself out of his thoughts and forces his voice to go back to normal. “Sorry, I was just thinking.” 

“That’s never a good thing.”

Despite himself, Bellamy smiles, a small laugh escaping him. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be here this soon,” he says, almost chastising her.

“I didn’t know how you would react! You freaked out on me the last time, if you recall.” She goes quiet for a minute, but then speaks up again, “I know I didn’t really tell you, but I know I want to move back to Boston after I graduate. London is... it’s great, but my parents are getting divorced and I just can’t stand to be there anymore. I need a fresh start, and I thought it wouldn’t be so hard because I knew someone there already...”

Bellamy immediately feels guilty because he knows she’s talking about him, and deep down, he  _is_  happy. Clarke is his best friend, but he still thinks there’s a chance she’s going to see him, and turn around and walk the other way when she realizes that he’s no good for her. He’s been a pretty shit friend, even though he knows he cares about Clarke more than that. There aren’t really words to describe what Clarke means to him, and that’s what makes him nervous.

He gets to the coffee place where he’s meeting Octavia, and tells Clarke he has to go. “I’ll text you later. I’m sure my sister is going to have twelve thousand questions for you.”

Clarke laughs, “It’s so weird to be in the same time zone.”

“I don’t know,” Bellamy says, pausing briefly to lean down and kiss his sister on the cheek when he gets close enough, “I think it’s pretty great.”

“Bye, Bellamy,” Clarke says, softly, and Bellamy’s heart does some kind of weird flip in his chest. 

“Talk to you soon,” he says, and hangs up. When he sits down, his sister is looking at him expectantly. “What?” He asks, frowning, picking up a menu.

“Who were you talking to with that smile on your face?” She demands, taking a sip of some drink that he’s sure has entirely too much sugar. 

“It was Clarke,” he says. “She’s uh... she’s in town.”

“ _What_?!” Octavia whisper-shouts, almost dropping her coffee, “You didn’t tell me!” She accuses, pointing a finger at him.

“I didn’t know until just now!” 

“And you’re sitting here with me instead of with her, you idiot!” 

Bellamy shakes his head, setting down his menu. “I don’t... I don’t know if any of this is a good idea,” he admits.

Octavia looks like she wants to hit him over the head. “Are you crazy? Bell... You’re totally in love with her.”

Bellamy sputters, “I’m not-- She’s just-- I’m not  _in love_  with her!” 

“You are, and you’re being dumb. What do you have to lose? You already know her, it’s not like this is a blind date.”

Bellamy stops protesting, knowing she has a point and that it’s all his own insecurities that are keeping him from meeting Clarke at this point. Clarke has never given him any indication that she didn’t want to meet up at some point, and he’s noticed a change in the tone of their conversations lately that would seem to indicate his feelings aren’t as one-sided as he thinks they are. 

He doesn’t know what to think, honestly. He knows one thing, though. He knows for a fact that once he sees Clarke Griffin face-to-face, he’s going to be in way over his head.

.

.

.

The next day, Clarke texts Bellamy an address. There’s nothing else, just some numbers and a street name, and Bellamy burns himself cooking dinner, he’s so distracted.

He can’t remember the last time he was this nervous. After ten minutes of staring into his closet looking for something to wear, he scolds himself for being such a teenager and decides to just go meet her before he has time to talk himself out of it. 

The place she asked to meet him is an art gallery and he laughs, shaking his head when he realizes, because that is so  _Clarke_. When he walks inside, he looks around slowly, trying to find any sign of a girl who looks like Clarke, and out of the corner of his eye he spots a flash of blonde. 

Palms sweating, he walks closer, hoping he doesn’t look like a stalker. “Clarke?” He asks, and when she turns around, all the breath leaves his lungs in a whoosh. 

Those pictures did not do her justice.

She beams at him, and he feels something warm grow in his chest and he doesn’t have time to react before she takes a few steps towards him and she’s sliding an arm around his waist and pulling him to her, engulfing him in a hug. 

He reacts immediately, his arms going around her, a shaky laugh escaping his lips. “Hey, princess,” he says, and she laughs, the sound even better in person. 

The feeling of her pressed against him is a little bit too much, so he pulls away slowly. 

“Hi,” she says, sounding a little breathless herself. 

They just stand there, looking at each other for a moment, and Bellamy feels his face heat up the longer she goes without saying anything, and he ducks his head down, looking anywhere but at her.

“You’re taller than I thought,” she says, and it’s so strange, this entire situation, that he can’t help but laugh.

“It’s not my fault you’re so short,” he teases, and just like that, the awkwardness is gone. 

They spend the afternoon sightseeing. Clarke is originally from Boston, but she hasn’t spent any time here in her adult life, so Bellamy takes her to all his favorite places. They wander around the park near his apartment and eat chocolate chip cookies from Octavia’s favorite bakery.

Bellamy is amazed at how  _easy_  it all seems. He’s also amazed that Clarke hasn’t run for the hills yet, and feels like even more of an idiot for thinking she ever would. He wonders if she’ll ever stop surprising him.

“I was thinking of looking for apartments tomorrow,” she tells him as they lay on their backs in the grass, the sun slowly going down. “My Mom is going to be tied up all day again so I won’t have anything better to do.”

“Hey,” Bellamy protests. 

Clarke rolls her eyes, “You know what I mean.”

“So you’re serious then? About moving back here?” Bellamy asks, craning his head so he can see her.

“Yeah,” she sounds surprised that he’s even asking. “Yeah. That’s always been the plan.”

“I just...” Bellamy starts, “I just thought you might have changed your mind.”

“How could I?” She says, “With you here, how could I?”

“What about Finn?” Bellamy asks, hating himself for ruining the moment by bringing up someone else. “Did you kick his ass to the curb yet?” He asks, referring to all the phone calls Clarke was getting from Finn begging her to take him back, even though he was the one to leave.

Clarke shrugs, “He made his choice. I think it’s time I choose something that’s good for me, for once.”

Bellamy’s answering smile almost hurts his face.

.

.

.

_2 months later_

His baby sister is graduating today, and Bellamy feels like he’s about to lose his mind.

“Stop fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting,” he grumbles, although his fingers go right back to adjusting his tie. 

“You are, and you’re going to ruin that knot I tied so perfectly for you,” Clarke says, coming to stand in front of him. She’s wearing a dress, the kind that makes him want to forget about going to the ceremony, but she also looks so elegant that she could get on stage and give a speech and she wouldn’t look out of place.

“I hate ties.” 

“You’re a child,” she admonishes gently, fixing his tie for the third time. “We better go, or we’re going to be late.”

Bellamy nods, and takes her hand as they leave the apartment, locking the door behind them. Two months ago, when Clarke had already signed paperwork for a lease and was prepared to get on a plane, Bellamy convinced her that she didn’t need an apartment, not when he already had one.

It was there, in the middle of the drop-off lane at the airport, where Clarke grabbed his face in her hands and told him she was coming back for him in a month after she graduated and kissed him so soundly he swears to this day he saw stars afterwards.

Clarke’s mother thought they were moving too fast, but Clarke’s father paid for Clarke’s plane ticket to come home to Boston, and Bellamy liked the guy based on that alone. 

Bellamy maneuvers the car into the parking lot at the university and takes a deep breath before getting out of the car, walking around to open Clarke’s door for her.

“Relax,” she says quietly, leaning up to press a kiss to his temple, and he sighs. 

“She’s my--”

“-- your baby sister, I know. But she’s so smart and so accomplished and a lot of that is due to  _you_ , Bell. Just be happy for her today and worry about her getting married tomorrow,” she says, grinning at the last part, and he scowls.

“That is not funny.”

“It was  _kinda_  funny,” Clarke disagrees, but they’re both saved from their conversation by Octavia’s boyfriend Lincoln.

“There you two are. Octavia was freaking out so I got her here early. The ceremony is going to start soon.”

“I’m so glad you have a last name that starts with a ‘B’,” Clarke says, “Although that means we have to sit through everyone else’s names.”

The ceremony goes by faster than they expect, and Bellamy absolutely  _does not_ get teary when Octavia walks across the stage to accept her diploma, but Clarke says nothing, just squeezes his hand tighter.

Afterwards, he sweeps Octavia up in a bear hug and tells her he is so, so proud of her, and when Clarke hugs her next and whispers something in Octavia’s ear that has Octavia’s eyes glistening with tears, Bellamy can’t remember a time he felt so content.

He’s going to have to remember to send his linguistics professor a thank-you.


End file.
